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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24081430">Bet On It</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis'>Nokomis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff, Prompt Fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:20:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,318</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24081430</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>May is chaperoning Peter at a battle robot competition when she (literally) bumps into Tony.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>May Parker (Spider-Man)/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>170</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bet On It</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for angel-gidget's prompt on tumblr for Tony/May, voluntary chaperones.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was a mistake. A complete, total, absolute mistake. May was never, ever doing this again.</p>
<p>She looked around, overwhelmed. Yep. She was still surrounded by teenagers armed with battle robots they’d built themselves.  Allegedly they were all to remain at their workstations with proper protective equipment, but they were <i>teenagers</i>. They were absolutely not going to wait until the competition to try out their lasers and saws on each other.  </p>
<p>“Peter, I’m gonna tap out,” May said, trying not to wince as Peter’s robot unfurled a whirring blade and attempted to cut a piece of lumber in half.  “I’ve gone through too much to watch you chop off a thumb now.”</p>
<p>“My thumb is nowhere near the blade,” Peter said, waving his hands in a manner she supposed was meant to be reassuring. “Besides, you never know, it could grow back.”  He gave her a shit-eating grin, and May nobly managed to refrain from calling her kid an asshole.</p>
<p>“Chaperones are allowed coffee breaks, right?” May looked longingly towards the exit. </p>
<p>“You’re supposed to supervise me the whole time I am engaging the robot,” Peter recited, making air quotes with his fingers. “It’s in the Teen Battle Robot Competition handbook.”</p>
<p>May rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll be gone ten minutes, tops. Cover for me.”</p>
<p>“May!” Peter hissed, adorably frazzled for someone who fought crime on the regular.  She ignored him and wove her way through the crowd, trying not to focus on the terrifying murder robots the children were creating all around her. This was so seriously not her thing. She slipped on her sunglasses and headed out the door, aiming for the nearest coffee shop.</p>
<p>She only planned to be gone for ten minutes, though thanks to the line and the fact that she really didn’t want to return to robot hell immediately, it stretched out past half an hour. She finally returned, iced coffee in hand, pushing through the door while scanning the room for Peter.</p>
<p>Instead she ran directly into someone.  Her hand holding the coffee bumped into her chest, covering her top with iced coffee.</p>
<p>“Shit!.” She shook droplets of coffee off her hand as she transferred the cup to her dry hand, and patted at her shirt with the napkin she’d had wrapped around the cup. </p>
<p>“By all means, save the shirt, screw the bystander.”</p>
<p>It couldn’t be. May looked slowly up, still dabbing the napkin at her chest, to see Tony Stark standing there, grinning at her.</p>
<p>“What are you doing here?” Crap, that was rude. May tried not to be rude to Tony, because while he could be supremely irritating and smug, he had done things for her kid that she could never repay him for.  But… what was he doing here? And dressed like, well.. A farmer. She quietly chose not to question it too much. Besides, this was <i>her</i> time with Peter, as ill-suited to the outing as she might be.</p>
<p>“Same as you, I assume,” Tony said, flagging down someone who magically had a towel on hand. He offered it to her with a, “I can help if you want.”</p>
<p>“I’d rather you didn’t, thanks,” May said, but she accepted the towel. She dried up the worst of the spill -- it was sheer luck that she was wearing a dark top that wouldn’t stain, merely clung to her damply. Tony seemed to appreciate it, though she raised an eyebrow at him when she noticed him looking.  He had the decency to quit immediately. </p>
<p>May didn’t love the idea of Tony popping in and taking over her time with Peter, though, no matter how little she was enjoying the killer robots. It was exactly up his alley, and she should bow gracefully out, but… “I hope you aren’t here to be Peter’s chaperone. I’ve got that covered.”</p>
<p>“And bless you for it, that kid is a disaster,” Tony said fondly. “I’m here for that sarcastic little bastard over there.”  He gestured towards a kid in a faded AC/DC shirt who was using a controller to aim what appeared to be a ray gun mounted atop his robot at the ceiling.</p>
<p>“You don’t have a kid,” May said with certainty.</p>
<p>“Nope,” Tony agreed. “But Harley’s a kid I watch out for, and he’s almost as bright as your kid.”</p>
<p>Pride laced his words, and he was watching the boy with a soft fondness that made May feel immediately guilty for her own possessiveness moments before. She of all people should understand the bond you could forge with a child not of your own blood, and know the legitimacy of such a bond. </p>
<p>“He have superpowers too?”  </p>
<p>“Nope, and it’s probably a good thing,” Tony said cheerfully. “Think Peter will notice I’m here?”</p>
<p>“You think he hasn’t already?” May said. It was the right answer, Tony’s eyes lit up in a genuine way that made it clear to her how often she saw him play acting at happiness.</p>
<p>“Come on, I’ll introduce you to Harley,” Tony offered. “Unless you want me to get you out of those wet clothes first?” He waggled his eyebrows in a way that was so over-the-top that May just laughed.</p>
<p>“Shockingly I didn’t bring a wardrobe change to a day outing. It’ll dry.”  Hopefully she wouldn’t smell too awful when it did.  </p>
<p>“Here.” Tony shrugged off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders like a letterman’s jacket before she could think to protest.  Despite the rough material, it was warm and smelled like Tony  -- expensive and a little <i>much</i> -- but May didn’t take it off.</p>
<p>She didn’t even want to, which… was something she would have to examine more closely.  She was no stranger to gallant gestures, and she didn’t normally accept them from people she wasn’t interested in.  Tony was a force of nature, she told herself. He wouldn’t accept it back even if you tried.</p>
<p>Plus, there were way too many teenage boys in the room for her to really want to walk around in a cold, wet shirt that clung uncomfortably. </p>
<p>Tony flung his arm over her shoulder, apparently deciding that if his jacket was allowed to do so, so was he, and he led her over to the kid he’d claimed.  </p>
<p>Harley was the polar opposite from Peter -- confident, sarcastic in a biting way, and treated Tony like he was any other human being. It was a sharp contrast to the hero worship Peter tended towards, and the shyness and sweetness that she was always worried was going to be worn away by the world they lived in.  But watching Harley and Tony together made it obvious that deep down Harley was another kid who had been given the short stick by life and was trying his best to carve his own path through it.  </p>
<p>Harley also kept giving her what could only kindly be called the stink eye. It took her a moment to work out why -- he’d watched Tony stroll up with his arm around her shoulder, she was wearing Tony’s jacket like they were going steady, and it was fairly obvious that her expertise was not in mechanical engineering.</p>
<p>It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the kid was assuming about her, and May couldn’t figure out a casual way to tell him how very wrong he was. Finally she settled on, “I gotta go see how Peter’s robot is coming along.”</p>
<p>“You know he’s actually lined up to battle Harley’s robot,” Tony said, and it was obvious from Harley’s confused expression that Tony had not divulged his connection with the competition. </p>
<p>He looked back and forth between them. “Who’s this Peter kid?”</p>
<p>“An intern,” Tony replied smoothly.</p>
<p>Harley was clearly not satisfied with this answer. “You’ve never offered me an internship.”</p>
<p>“This is a different thing,” Tony replied. May winced; Tony was entirely too new to managing teenagers to understand what he’d just done.  Harley’s expression darkened and May knew without a doubt that Peter’s robot was a dead machine rolling.</p>
<p>“I’m just going to head back over there,” May said, gesturing vaguely towards Peter’s distant station and hurrying off before she got somehow wrapped up in the argument Harley was about to start.</p>
<p>She hustled off, and only realized she was still wearing Tony’s jacket with Peter raised an eyebrow at her. </p>
<p>“I ran into Tony -- literally--  and dumped my coffee on myself,” she explained. </p>
<p>“Very, uh, gentlemanly of him to offer his coat,” Peter said,. “And why was he even here? He hasn’t said hi to me.” He checked his phone, where she could only see messages from Ned bemoaning his parents for choosing this weekend for a family trip.</p>
<p>“Apparently,” May said, stretching out the word to show it was news to her, too, “he’s mentoring a kid in this competition. I didn’t get the details.”</p>
<p>May marvelled as Peter’s expression  became a mirror for one Harley had worn moments before. Tony really knew how to pick ‘em.</p>
<p>“What? What kid?” Peter stood on his tippy-toes, looking around to try to spot Tony. His expression darkened even more when he found him. “<i>That</i> kid? He’s the three-time champion! Last year his robot managed to freeze and set his opponent on fire simultaneously!”</p>
<p>May’s eyebrows raised. “You know him?”</p>
<p>“Some other kids were talking about him earlier,” Peter explained. “They somehow didn’t mention that Tony was with him.”</p>
<p>May thought back to Tony’s appearance and he had appeared more low-key than usual. The jacket she was still wearing was denim, which… she wouldn’t have thought was in Tony’s wardrobe at all, honestly. “I think he’s in disguise.”</p>
<p>“Huh,” Peter said. “I didn’t know he knew how to do that.”</p>
<p>“To be fair, I only realized it in retrospect.”  May shrugged. “I think the fact that he isn’t announcing his presence is doing most of the disguise work for him. No one would believe Tony Stark would show up at a battle robot competition and not try to win.”</p>
<p>“He is though,” Peter said darkly. “With that kid.”</p>
<p>“Well,” May said, looking at Peter’s robot, “guess we just have to kick that kid’s ass.”</p>
<p>Peter grinned. </p>
<p>An hour later -- and the time seemed to magically fly by much faster than before, now that May had a goal in mind -- it was time for Peter’s first battle. He wasn’t up against Harley until the third round, and May felt a little proud that Tony had assumed Peter would make it through to the finals without any help. Her boy was brilliant, and it always gave her a warm feeling when others acknowledged it, too. </p>
<p>Especially Tony, but she would never, ever tell him that.</p>
<p>Peter’s robot destroyed his competition in under a minute, and twenty minutes later, in his semifinal round, he took out a robot that seemed to be made entirely of buzzsaws in an agonizing three minute match.  </p>
<p>He won, though, and they settled in to watch the competition. Harley’s robot had destroyed his first competitor in thirty seconds, and in this battle, he revealed that he’d somehow installed a flame launcher on the underside that melted the wiring on the robot he was fighting in the semifinal.</p>
<p>Finally, it came down to Harley and Peter. Tony was beaming proudly, and May had no idea how anyone failed to notice it was him, flannel or no. </p>
<p>“Kick his ass, kiddo,” May told Peter encouragingly. “You’ve got this.”</p>
<p>Peter gave her a double-thumbs up, and marched into battle.</p>
<p>May slid over to where Tony was watching, standing shoulder to shoulder with him as their kids prepared to destroy each other. “Hope you’re prepared for defeat.”</p>
<p>“You know I can’t pick favorites,” Tony said, “except for how there’s no chance in hell that Harley’s not gonna win this.”</p>
<p>“Wanna bet?” May said teasingly.</p>
<p>“Why, Ms. Parker, I wouldn’t have taken you for a gambling woman, but yes, yes I do,” Tony said. “My kid wins, I get to take you out for that dinner.”  </p>
<p>Tony had been threatening to take her out to dinner for months. “And if my kid wins?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Why, you have to take me out, of course. Terms have to be fair.”  Tony’s grin should make her want to smack him, but May had found that the bastard tended to grow on you. </p>
<p>She considered it half a moment, but… what the hell. She held out her hand to shake on it.</p>
<p>When she turned back to the rink, she noticed that both Peter and Harley were giving them the stinkeye, even as the ref counted down for the battle to begin.</p>
<p>Once it did, there was absolute carnage. May saw a streak of fluid that looked alarmingly like blood arc through the air after a saw unfurled off Peter’s robot and surprise-attacked Harley’s. Then as Harley’s robot retaliated, there was fire and sparks. When the smoke cleared, both robots were incapacitated.</p>
<p>“A tie!” declared the ref, much to the disappointment of both boys.</p>
<p>May glanced over at Tony. “Guess it’s a draw.”</p>
<p>“So we have to do two dinners, obviously,” Tony said without skipping a beat. </p>
<p>From the corner of her eye, she could see Harley and Peter turn towards each other, and she was proud to see Peter offer Harley a handshake. A moment’s hesitation, eyes cast towards Tony, but Harley shook firmly.  She had a feeling that was not going to turn out great for Tony.</p>
<p>“It’s a date.”  Tony continued, looking so overly confident that May knew that he was hoping that she’d agree.</p>
<p>May’s attention crashed back into focus on the man in front of her.  This could go so very badly, and there was Peter to think about, for when things inevitably crashed and burned, but…</p>
<p>May had made most of her best decisions in life on impulse, and she knew what she wanted to say. “Pick me up at seven.”</p>
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